What you should know about White Sox interim manager Grady Sizemore originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

The White Sox named major league manager Grady Sizemore as the team’s interim manager after firing Pedro Grifol on Thursday.

Sizemore, 42, takes over a club with a 28-89 record and is tasked with leading the team through the final 44 games of a miserable season.

Most people know Sizemore as a three-time All-Star, two-time Gold Glove Award winner and Silver Slugger Award winner with Cleveland, where he played for eight seasons from 2004 to 2011. Sizemore finished his career with brief stints in Boston (2014), Philadelphia (2014-15) and Tampa Bay (2015). As a player, he had a .265 batting average, an .806 OPS, hit 150 home runs and scored 581 runs in 1,101 career games.

Sizemore began his post-playing career in 2017 as a special advisor to Cleveland’s player development department.

In 2023, after taking time off from the game to focus on his family, Sizemore contacted former teammate Josh Barfield to ask him to join the Arizona Diamondbacks organization, where Barfield was the director of player development. There were no positions available at the time, so Sizemore accepted a $15-an-hour internship with Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen.

After the season, Barfield became assistant general manager of the Chicago White Sox and recommended Sizemore to Grifol and White Sox GM Chris Getz for a position on the coaching staff.

With less than one season of major league coaching under his belt, it’s highly unlikely that Sizemore will be considered as a candidate for the White Sox coaching job after the season. Getz said several times Thursday that he will look outside the organization. Sizemore’s job is to mentor this young roster and get everything he can out of the team over the final 44 games.

In addition to Grifol, the White Sox also fired bench coach Charlie Montoyo, third base coach Eddie Rodriguez and assistant hitting coach Mike Tosar.

In their place, the White Sox named Sizemore as interim manager, Doug Sisson as bench coach, Justin Jirschele as third base coach and Mike Gellinger as assistant hitting coach for the remainder of the season.

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